New Years Resolutions
I know these were supposed to come out last week, but 2010 was a big year, and I've had a hard time coming up with things to top it: we started exercising, ran two triathlons, an 8k road race, a half marathon, and a 50 mile bike ride. I quit a career and started a new job. I cooked more and started eating healthily thanks to a new CSA subscription. I left the church I was raised in. I went back to school and got straight A's. Angel started a new job. We caught up with family, I performed two weddings, and we got our finances in shape. I probably spent less time on the internet and watching tv. I started drinking less. That pretty much covers all of the bases. I didn't read any major classics of Russian literature, but other than that it feels like I should be finished. It was an almost embarrassingly productive year.
Plus I resolved and revealed a bunch of good possibilities prior to the New Year. We're going to travel overseas again, to Rome in March. We're going to run a Marathon. I'm applying to Nursing school, hopefully to start by next year.
So, even though it's all down hill from here, there are a few areas of life that I'd like to continue to chip away at. I'll list my resolutions here so I can revisit them again next year at this time, and because it's not real until it's on the Internet.
1. 2010 was the year of half-distances. 2011 will be the year of full-distances as (along with the Marathon) we will run an Olympic length triathlon and bike a Century (100 miles). I might have already told you about this one - I'm not sure - and both seem much more attainable after the Marathon, which seemed like an impossibility to me until we did the half and didn't die.
2. I will finish that book I've been talking about here for the last 2 years. I actually have a really rough draft of a 150 page memoir about my religious experience that I'm not really that happy with, and that I haven't been motivated to work on further. I've been tossing around the idea of posting it online, in serial form, for those of you who are interested. By the end of the year I want to decide whether that's what I'm going to, or whether I'm going to try to get it published somewhere.
3. I will continue to advance at my job as I prepare for nursing school. My job is a very 'pre-nursing' kind of position, and learning and picking up responsibility there will be a natural progression towards taking on a nursing role, especially if I stick with psych, which is still the plan.
4. I will start to pay down my student loans, and pay for further schooling through cash, scholarships or support from work. I'm still sitting on over $25k in stupid student loans. I want to make some progress on them and avoid racking up more. If I end up at community college for nursing this one will be really attainable. If at the UW, a little bit less so, but I should be able to avoid incurring more debt.
5. Readjust my volunteer commitments to be more sustainable. Last year I figured out that the type of volunteer leadership responsibilities that I tend to pick up are draining, and that I'm not really that good at them. So, I'm going to try to continue to readjust so I'm not in charge of committees and so I'm not spending all of my time doing things that feel like work. I'll let work be the place I work, and volunteer where I get energy.
6. Invest time in my community. This is one of those amorphous ones that you can't really gage, but a major loss in leaving church has been a structured sense of community connection. Some things you just have to write off if you don't want to be a part of a religious community (it's something unique, I think), but I think you can still develop a sense of home and connection. I want to invest time in local art and music, I want to do fun things with the people who live in my co-op, I want to continue to spend time with friends despite my stupid work and school schedule, and I want to go to big community events. I also want to work on my family connections with those who are here and those who are dispersed.
7. I want to maintain a healthy sense of balance with school. For some reason I have always stressed about school to an irrational degree (which is part of why I've always done so well). I'm an adult now, and I've been in the workforce long enough to know that no one cares about the grades that you got in college. I resolve to learn what I need to learn, and not stress about grades. Also, to realize that you don't really learn much of what you really need to know in school, and focus on picking things up at Children's that will be relevant to my future work. Also, my interests are too broad to let work eat my life anyway (which is why I'm not pursuing something like a Nurse Practitioner program), so I want to keep my priorities straight.
8. And finally, I resolve to blog when I feel like it.
Plus I resolved and revealed a bunch of good possibilities prior to the New Year. We're going to travel overseas again, to Rome in March. We're going to run a Marathon. I'm applying to Nursing school, hopefully to start by next year.
So, even though it's all down hill from here, there are a few areas of life that I'd like to continue to chip away at. I'll list my resolutions here so I can revisit them again next year at this time, and because it's not real until it's on the Internet.
1. 2010 was the year of half-distances. 2011 will be the year of full-distances as (along with the Marathon) we will run an Olympic length triathlon and bike a Century (100 miles). I might have already told you about this one - I'm not sure - and both seem much more attainable after the Marathon, which seemed like an impossibility to me until we did the half and didn't die.
2. I will finish that book I've been talking about here for the last 2 years. I actually have a really rough draft of a 150 page memoir about my religious experience that I'm not really that happy with, and that I haven't been motivated to work on further. I've been tossing around the idea of posting it online, in serial form, for those of you who are interested. By the end of the year I want to decide whether that's what I'm going to, or whether I'm going to try to get it published somewhere.
3. I will continue to advance at my job as I prepare for nursing school. My job is a very 'pre-nursing' kind of position, and learning and picking up responsibility there will be a natural progression towards taking on a nursing role, especially if I stick with psych, which is still the plan.
4. I will start to pay down my student loans, and pay for further schooling through cash, scholarships or support from work. I'm still sitting on over $25k in stupid student loans. I want to make some progress on them and avoid racking up more. If I end up at community college for nursing this one will be really attainable. If at the UW, a little bit less so, but I should be able to avoid incurring more debt.
5. Readjust my volunteer commitments to be more sustainable. Last year I figured out that the type of volunteer leadership responsibilities that I tend to pick up are draining, and that I'm not really that good at them. So, I'm going to try to continue to readjust so I'm not in charge of committees and so I'm not spending all of my time doing things that feel like work. I'll let work be the place I work, and volunteer where I get energy.
6. Invest time in my community. This is one of those amorphous ones that you can't really gage, but a major loss in leaving church has been a structured sense of community connection. Some things you just have to write off if you don't want to be a part of a religious community (it's something unique, I think), but I think you can still develop a sense of home and connection. I want to invest time in local art and music, I want to do fun things with the people who live in my co-op, I want to continue to spend time with friends despite my stupid work and school schedule, and I want to go to big community events. I also want to work on my family connections with those who are here and those who are dispersed.
7. I want to maintain a healthy sense of balance with school. For some reason I have always stressed about school to an irrational degree (which is part of why I've always done so well). I'm an adult now, and I've been in the workforce long enough to know that no one cares about the grades that you got in college. I resolve to learn what I need to learn, and not stress about grades. Also, to realize that you don't really learn much of what you really need to know in school, and focus on picking things up at Children's that will be relevant to my future work. Also, my interests are too broad to let work eat my life anyway (which is why I'm not pursuing something like a Nurse Practitioner program), so I want to keep my priorities straight.
8. And finally, I resolve to blog when I feel like it.
Comments
May 2011 be a fabulous year for you and your endeavors.